Key West - Out Sailing

Philip at the helm, good wind!

It was a perfect day for a sail with winds out of the southeast at 10 to 15 kts, full sun, no chance of rain or thunderstorms and very little waves. So we headed out around 11:00 to the reefs but we had a crew member who didn't fare very well in the chop we encountered so we turned back to sail west of Sunset Key (otherwise known as Tank Island on the charts). It's a protected area from waves so we had flat water to sail in. Our youngest crew member recovered well enough to put away a good lunch!

This is also the area where the party boats go since the water is protected with little chance of seasickness among the passengers. So we saw the parasail boats, a couple of windjammers, several sea adventure boats, several Coast Guard boats looking for Cuban Chugs - lots of activity. If you want to see a video of sailing on Fleetwing, click here.

On the way back we crossed in front of the windjammer Appledore and then turned to chase her. The windjammers don't go all that fast, even with all their sails up and we caught up after 20 minutes or so. This was the same experience we had when we sailed in Maine, They look beautiful but slower than us.

Key West Bight Harbor - Evening

Coming back into our slip is always exciting. One crew member is posted up front to catch a dock cleat, two on either side to catch both pilings to keep us from hitting the front dock and I try to maneuver the boat between the pilings without too much damage. For the most part we were successful. We have plans Thursday to take a kayak trip on the back side of Key West in shallow water and Ann even wants to take Hoolie!